‘LEGO Fortnite’ Is Honestly a Must-Play With the Family During the Holidays

I’m addicted. I can’t help myself. Practically every single day after work this December, I closed out Slack, pulled out my Nintendo Switch, lay in bed, hopped on a call with my friends, and started playing. I even left a holiday party an hour early just so I could get back on.

That’s right. I’m talking about the hottest game of the holiday season, LEGO Fortnite.

What is this LEGO Fortnite?

For a game synonymous with high-stakes, last-man-standing multiplayer combat, LEGO Fortnite feels like a far cry from the classic Fortnite formula. Sure, the game drops players right into an open world with an abundant supply of resources to mine for building defensive structures. But instead of duking it out with other players in a battle to the death across an ever-shrinking map, LEGO Fortnite doesn’t really give its players a clear objective. It’s far chiller than that. Players can explore the game’s world to collect resources and build up their own village, working together in co-op multiplayer, but that’s about it.

Unlock the standard Fortnite modes, LEGO Fortnite puts a lot of control into the player’s hands. You can pick between two modes, one based on surviving the odds in a world filled with roaming enemies and the harsh elements, or you can pop into a sandbox mode and build whatever you want with your friends. The game truly lets you dictate your course of action. Want to build a bustling and robust civilization full of LEGO settlements? Go for it. Care to venture out into the wilderness to see all the different climates LEGO Fortnite has to offer? Good luck. Don’t care for any of that, and just want to hang out with your friends and build your own village up with its own unique locations? Sure, you can do that too. In fact, ours has an Old Country Buffet.

LEGO Fortnite isn’t just Fortnite with LEGO structures. It’s basically a brand new game, where every single character, animal, and building is made with LEGO. You can play as a wide selection of Fortnite characters, all lovingly crafted over into LEGO minifigures, as well as a number of pop culture characters turned into playable minifigs as well. Want to play as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as LEGOs? Go ahead! April O’Neil is even available too. Expect to do battle with LEGO wolves while trying to collect milk from LEGO cows, too.

How I somehow fell in love with LEGO Fortnite

I actually wasn’t expecting LEGO Fortnite to sweep me off my feet. I’m usually not one for crafting co-op survival games; my preference is for first-person shooters like Overwatch, DOOM Eternal, and Valorant. If there’s any mode in Fortnite I prefer, it’s actually the classic Battle Royale game.

But LEGO Fortnite won me over because of its sheer charm and simplicity. This is not a complex and convoluted crafting game, with dozens of recipes to memorize. It’s simple, straightforward, and doesn’t really get in its own way, while still offering challenging biomes to explore and master. That makes LEGO Fortnite really fun for novice and expert survival players alike. It also makes it a fantastic game to play with the whole family over the holidays, as you don’t really need a significant amount of gaming experience to get into the survival game’s groove.

In fact, you don’t need to spend a single cent to play LEGO Fortnite, nor do you need a fancy gaming PC to hop on and start building. Own a PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, or Xbox? You can play LEGO Fortnite for free right now. If your family owns multiple gaming consoles, then kids and parents alike can quickly and easily create their own world and play together, given Fortnite supports crossplay across platforms. Android users can even play LEGO Fortnite right from their smartphones, making the game one of the most accessible free-to-play co-op multiplayer games out there.

It goes without saying, but LEGO Fortnite was also built from the ground up to be incredibly family-friendly. Violence is minimal in the game, with an emphasis on fighting AI LEGO monsters and bandits over shooting human opponents dressed as Peter Griffin and Iron Man. It’s built for a closed-off and private multiplayer experience as well, so parents have a lot of control over what their kids are exposed to when they play LEGO Fortnite. You can read more on the official LEGO site’s parental guide to the game.

Personally, I highly recommend the game for families, although I think parents should try the game with their kids — not because LEGO Fortnite has anything inappropriate for younger audiences, but because it offers an incredibly rewarding experience in risk, adventure, and creative expression for young gamers. First and foremost, LEGO Fortnite is a social game, where players share in all the highs and lows together. That’s what makes it so fun.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I lost my backpack out in the desert, and I need to craft a longsword and retrieve it before I stop into the Old Country Buffet for lunch. Where, yes, I will promptly dab with my fellow villagers, thank you very much.

(featured image: Epic Games)